


How does the story end?

by sb_essebi



Series: Whouffaldi one-shots [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Reading Together, Snuggling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-01 08:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12701475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sb_essebi/pseuds/sb_essebi
Summary: Clara is reading. The Doctor is bored. Somehow, he finds himself reading 'Pride and Prejudice' to her. And maybe learning a thing or two from the book, too.





	How does the story end?

**Author's Note:**

> In the fic there is a long snippet from 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen, which I obviously don't own. Enjoy :)

"Clara," came the Doctor's voice from the upper level of the console room. "Are you reading  _Pride and Prejudice_  again?"

"Yep," Clara answered, comfortably sprawled in his leather armchair, reading said book.

"That's my armchair, Clara," he pointed out as he reached her, staring down at her as he stood in front of his chair, facing her. Clara couldn't help thinking that he looked almost intimidating in his usual dark blue suit, his skinny tall frame towering over her. Almost.

"Yep," she answered, sinking further into his armchair and hiding her face behind the book.

"Get off," he ordered plainly with this sort of stark gaze.

"Nope."

Clara liked teasing him like this, bossing him around. Besides, she was more than comfortable in his chair, the scent of leather mixed and soaked with  _his_  scent: it made her able to feel him close, in this time when he had contrasting reactions to physical contact.

The Doctor sighed. "May I have my book back? I wanted to read it," he asked, politely but with a strong vein of annoyance in his voice.

"No. I'm reading it now," Clara replied cheekily, an interesting idea forming into her mind.

"But it's mine," he argued.

"You said I could read any book I wanted from your library."

He kept standing there near the armchair, staring down grudgingly at her hoping she would see reason, but –Clara thought- probably knowing that it wasn't going to happen.

"If you want to read it," Clara started, glancing up at him, her voice as velvet-soft as she could muster, "you'll just need to sit here and read aloud to me."

It was something Clara had wanted to ask him for a very long time, something they used to do often when he was young and wore fezzes and bowties. When he used to have brown, long floppy hair, he used to read to her all the time, he used to do the voices. Of course, she knew that this Doctor wouldn't do that. And that wasn't the reason why she wanted him to read to her. The lie she told to herself was that she wanted things to go back to how they were before, simple and easy and instinctive, but the truth was that she simply loved the sound of his voice – _this_  voice. The gruff, Scottish one. She could lie to Danny or to herself all she wanted, but the feelings she had always felt for the Doctor had only grown since his regeneration.

The Doctor shifted his weight from one foot to the other, seemingly pondering her offer.

"There isn't enough space for both of us," he pointed out. Clara was pleased to see that he looked –to her at least- tempted to accept.

"I'll seat on the arm of the chair!" she lied, a bit too quickly.

Clara couldn't tell if he was considering the possibility, staring down at her but apparently lost in thought, as if fighting a battle with himself.

"Okay," he said suddenly.

"Okay?" she asked, surprised.

"Yeah," the Doctor answered slowly.

Clara grinned up at him and moved on the arm of the chair, placing a bookmark on the page she had been reading and handing the book to the Doctor. As he grabbed it and sat down on the chair, Clara moved to sit on his lap. She felt his body stiffen suddenly and the Doctor inhale sharply.

"Clara. What are you doing?" he questioned nervously.

"You're comfy," she stated, straddling his left thigh and pressing her back into his chest.

"Am- am I?" he stammered.

"Yep," she affirmed. "Read to me, Doctor."

Clara smiled and closed her eyes as she felt the Doctor's body relax, exhaling slowly and shifting a little under her weight to find a more comfortable position. She breathed his scent in, chalk and aftershave and clean clothes and something else that was unmistakably just him. She could listen to the beat of his hearts, noticing how it was a little faster and louder than usual, and a little irregular. He adjusted his arms around her and started to read.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, tha-"

"Hey, no, what are you doing?" Clara exclaimed.

"Reading?"

"Read from where I left off!"

"But I want to read it from the start!" he protested.

"Come on, I bet you've read it a thousand times before."

He sighed heavily and she heard him turn the pages. "Whatever you say," he said, before starting to read again. "Occupied in  _observing_  Mr. Bingley's  _attentions_  to her sister, Elizabeth was  _far from suspecting_ that she was herself becoming an object of  _some interest_  in the eyes of his friend."

As Clara had expected, it was a pleasure to listen to him as he read, mainly because of certain habits of speech he had. He made little pauses after every few words, as if to catch his breath, something Clara had noticed he always did as he spoke. His reading was very expressive, he put a different strength or emphasis to the words that caught his attention, catching hers as well.

"Mr. Darcy had at first  _scarcely_  allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her  _only_  to criticise."

The Scottish accent was also something Clara loved. The way the Doctor rolled the  _r_  a little, or the way the  _c_  sounded a bit more like  _k_ , or the way the vowels lasted just a tad longer than she was used to. Little things that, combined with that perfect amount of deep and low in his voice, made her legs wobbly if she concentrated too much on the sound. She smiled as she allowed a shiver to run down her spine: she didn't need to stand now.

" _But no sooner_  had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she  _hardly_  had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the  _beautiful_  expression of her _dark_  eyes."

Clara felt the Doctor swallow, hard, and noticed the way his breath-rate increased. He shifted uncomfortably in his armchair and started to read more slowly.

"To this discovery succeeded some others  _equally mortifying_."

Clara dared to move a little, seeking that kind of proximity they'd shared when he had been his other self, with her side against the Doctor's chest, sitting on his thigh with her calves between his legs, her hand slipping under his coat in a tentative hug. She snuggled closer to him, nuzzling her head against his neck, and he hesitantly rested his chin on top of her head. She could feel his hearts beating wildly beneath her palm. She wondered why. Her own heart sped up as he brain formulated a hopeful hypothesis. Meanwhile, the Doctor kept reading, but slowly and uncertainly, his voice more a loud whisper now.

"Though he had  _detected_  with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was  _forced_  to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness.  _Of this she was perfectly unaware_."

He paused. Clara waited for him to start reading again, but he remained silent.

"Doctor? Why did you stop?" she asked, looking up at him. He seemed lost in thought.

"How does the story end, Clara?" he asked, avoiding her gaze.

"What are you talking about? You know how it ends." He glanced briefly at her before looking away again, and waited. "I mean, they have their happy ending and all that," she said.

"No no no, I mean,  _how_  does the story end?"

"I-" she hesitated, suddenly understanding what he meant. "Elizabeth and Darcy put aside their pride, so they're finally able to admit their feelings to themselves and to each other, and to see what they couldn't see because they were too blinded by their prejudices."

"Did you ever learn something from a book, Clara?" the Doctor murmured, his eyes suddenly staring into hers and pinning her in place as if they were examining her soul.

"Yeah, sometimes," she managed to answer. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I think I just did," he answered.

With those words, he leaned forward and pressed his lips firmly against hers.


End file.
